They seem very reminiscent of lots of late eighties/early nineties 'indie dance' to me (guitars, 4/4 beats and spoken word samples), and that is a genre which is not overdue a revival.

I'm not sure the music is very interesting, and whilst the samples are diverting for a while, they're ultimately not being used in a very creative way (as they are, for instance, by various Ghostbox artists). As someone says above I think it probably works ok over one or two tracks but I doubt a whole album of it will be that enjoyable.

All the sampled stuff from 'when Britain was great' makes me a bit uneasy too. It strikes me sometimes as being the sort of music an EDL member who thought he was at the musical cutting edge would enjoy.

and the samples are rad and not at all in the bullshit patriotic vein. On top of it all they are a fucking blast live, I'm not just saying this cos I interviewed them... I interviewed them because I felt that!

Was a bit confusing, so much was just running through a Mac it felt a bit flat, although there was some big moments when the sound really swelled. Adding a bassist and guitarist would help the live performance definitely.

Not a huge fan of the whole retro Britain stuff, as mentioned above it doesn't quite fit with the krauty music and the random bits of cringy banjo!

Some bits reminded me of more recent Mogwai, along with Asian Dub Foundation and Primal Scream. A weird combo!

The best thing about it is I went back to Mogwai's last two albums and really enjoyed those in comparison.

If the best thing about this album is a bunch of samples of WWII films (that sound totally out of context, has to be said) then that's a terrible USP. It's watered down Mogwai/65DOS and bored me to tears.

First time I listened to it I was cycling into work and had a big grin plastered on my face all the way through the first few tracks.

I know it means I should be shot at dawn but I even quite like the banjos. I sense they'll suffer from the law of diminishing returns they do another similar album in a similar vein but by resisting the urge to have tracks meander on too long they've done a great job with it.

the album is o.k. as background music, but the conceit of it is really lazy. It's as if they've noticed all the Ghost Box stuff and thought; "all this BBC archive and public service stuff is pretty cool but too unlistenably haunto. We should just play the samples over some easily accessible motoroik indie."

They've managed to strip all the atmosphere out of the nostalgic element and bolted it on to the most cyncially cut & shut up-tempo post-rock music they could create. It's totally souless. Before they added the samples to the songs they could have called the tracks

The Neu! one
The Electrelane one
the Sheffield Scene one

argh!

Why they keep sticking a banjo in there I don't know, it's pretty incongruous. There's just no reason for it to be there except, I guess, one of them can play the banjo and wants to show everyone.

They've been selling out gigs and album stocks in shops, so I guess dumb appeals. Kids go wild to the blandest things.

I keep playing the album though, but probably not for long - I think I've reached my threshold of tolerance for all the stuff I just ranted out.